Feature:
#BewareOfColour
Against in the drab prison grey of Joburg, a splash
pf pink was enough for me to slow down and
gawk. Shakespeare House in Commissioner Street
was crying pink from every window. It looks cool.
Someone was obviously bored. Nodding in approval,
I sped off before I got a wallet collector interested.
It was only on the way home again down Simmonds
and then Rissik Street – when I saw more buildings
covered in bright pink, splashed on the wall and
running down from the windows – that I realised
that it was the work of more than just a bunch of
bored teenagers. Now it was screaming rebellion; it
was crying for attention and most certainly pushing
back against the status quo. This was organised, and I
wanted to find out more.
It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking
for, and I was right, it was an act of activism.
#BEWAREOFCOLOUR is a group of rogue artists
trying to say something. To understand what exactly,
one would have to understand the little known
language of eccentric – their manifesto reads:
this is an urban experiment. it is a questioning of what
the city is, what it has been, and what it will be.
it is a re-framing of buildings that have been forgotten.
they re-appear before us through pink.
it is a re-invention of space. a celebration of the
unapologetic.
it’s a new story that needs to be written.
a love letter from our creatives to our land owners, our
chief executives, our politicians.
we look at buildings that have been left behind by time
and we caress their walls with our paint brushes.
we tickle them in hopes that they will tickle her.
she who walks to work in the morning her heels
Stella Mansions
africandesignmagazine.com
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